NGO Condemns EFCC Mode of Operations

Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja

Worried by the modus oparadus of the Economic and Financial  Crimes Commission(EFCC), a non- government organisation (NGO), the Movement for the Actualisation of True Federal and Political Restructuring in Nigeria  (MATFPRN)  has faulted the EFCC 2004 Act, stressing that its establishment was inconsistent with the Constitution of the federal republic of as amended. .

The group also described it as a child of illegitimacy, lamenting  that its terrorist methods of operation and  secretly at night under the cover of darkness against any perceived enemies or suspects.

The spokesman of the group, Comrade Benjamin Timothy, while addressing journalists in Lokoja yesterday, noted that another perfect way to describe the crude and ancient EFCC’s  modus operandi is that of the dance to the popular K- pop song by the South Korean artist, PSY released July 15th 2012 called “ Gangnam Style.”

The group stressed that it could be perfectly described the actions of the EFCC behaving noble at day time but going ballistic, gun blazing and violent at odd hours.

The NGO noted that the EFCC derived its establishment from UN charter to  take a preventive measures to curb corrupt practices , arguing the EFCC 2004 Act is inconsistent with the provision of constitution and fully supported by 16 states that dragged it before the apex court.

“In 2016, the EFCC in their usual gestapo manner stormed the home of justice Ofili Ajumogobia , a judge of a Federal High Court at 5:00am in the morning under the guise of investigation and prosecution of a case of alleged money laundering and breach of public trust. 

“Eventually, after such a public show of shame and national embarrassment by the EFCC, the cases were struck out by a high court judge of Lagos state in 2019 and she was reinstated as a Federal High Court judge on the 1st of December, 2022. An  abysmal performance, worst methodology and waste of resources by the agency.

“On the 29th of October 2021, the EFCC again stormed the Maitama home of a supreme court judge, Justice Mary Odili in Abuja. 

The operatives accompanied by policemen broke into her home in search of her husband who was a Governor in Rivers state between 1999 and 2007 after the latter had obtained perpetual injunction from a court of competent jurisdiction banning EFCC from investigating him. He  got another fresh injunction in 2020 against any impending probe. The EFCC flagrantly disobeyed and disregarded the laws of the country.

“It’s also public knowledge  that operatives of the EFCC stormed the Kogi Government Lodge, Asokoro in an attempt to forcefully arrest former Governor Yahaya Bello. 

“They shot sporadically in an attempt to forcefully arrest former Governor Bello when it was  reported earlier that the former governor went to the EFCC Office voluntarily earlier that day but the Commission told him to leave and come at a later date, only to mount a Gestapo-like attack on the Kogi State Government facility in Asokoro.

“Nigeria is not a Nazi Germany and obviously not a Banana Republic…….Enough of the Opan Gangnam style dance of the EFCC,” the group posited.